A Thrill of Hope: Christmas Eve

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Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we understand that what you do, you do to fit us, prepare us for heaven.

That means that we're never going to all the way fit in here in this world.

That means there's a reason the Bible says live your lives here as strangers and aliens, because this isn't home.

This is good.

There's good things to eat and drink and good people to hang out with, good things to do, good golf courses to play, good clothes to buy, good houses to live in, all that stuff.

But we are being fit for heaven because this isn't home.

This isn't enough.

This isn't big enough to contain all the things that you have stored up in your heart for your children.

So we enjoy it and we engage in it with a perspective of heaven.

If we lose perspective of heaven, there becomes a small ruthlessness to us, God, that our souls can't stand, which is why so many of us are down and depressed and just beat down.

Like, is this all there is?

And this time of year is a great reminder that you just kind of whisper from heaven, no.

No, it's not all there is.

I didn't enter in the chaos for this.

So Lord, maybe tonight our simple prayer is the Lord, don't let me settle.

Don't let me settle for anything that's too small.

Don't let me settle for anything that's not enough.

I don't want to waste my life making the insufficient look sufficient and making the mediocre taste fascinating.

Lord, we repent of that and we listen up because we believe you've got something to say to us tonight.

So speak, Lord.

Your servants are listening.

We pray and we listen in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

One of the reasons I love our Christmas Eve service is because you bring your kids and they play with fire.

The other thing I love about it is your kids say crazy stuff that embarrasses you, and it doesn't embarrass me like one little boy stopped me in the lobby and he said, Are you gonna talk as long as you normally do?

And I said, No, I'm gonna quit early so I have time to whip you before I go.

Uh if you're our guest, we celebrate Advent.

We don't do like promotional things, we don't give away a puppy or a truck or a house.

Uh uh Advent is the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, and tonight is the culmination.

My friend Grace Golson just killed it a few minutes ago.

I almost got up and said, Yes, I almost got up and said, You're dismissed to go home.

Uh but but but anyway, uh Advent celebrates the four Sundays, but it's a c it's a reminder that, hey, there was a time the Old Testament ends and it was kind of 400 years of silence because not because God was mad.

God just said, You don't want to listen, I'm not gonna talk, okay?

Because he does the same things today, by the way.

There's this cycle of this rhythm.

I met with somebody uh two weeks ago that said, hey, when I was a little kid, I was all into God in church and then kind of went off and got educated and kind of got away from it, and now I'm like in my late 30s and I want to come back to it.

Unfortunately, I said, unfortunately, that's the way a lot of us are.

We kind of think we outgrow or we're too smart or whatever.

So if you're hearing that you relax, no one's gonna beat you up.

Maybe you're like, hey, I'm staying with my in-laws and I got to come to this lame thing and listen to you prattle on, so just get to it, okay?

I'll get to it.

As soon as I'm done whipping that other kid, I'll whip you.

But I want to start where we preachers don't start enough.

I want to start where the Bible, the New Testament starts because there's just 400 years of silence, and then God breaks in and speaks, and he speaks in Matthew's gospel.

And he starts it, I'm gonna start where where it starts after the silence God speaks up in Matthew.

It's the first book of the New Testament.

The first word of the first book of the New Testament, in the first verse, says this the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

In other words, this is how Jesus came to be here.

This is what God was doing when it looked like God wasn't doing anything, because sometimes he's doing something that's so big and better and beyond you can't see it, so you don't think it's happening.

And it was happening.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah, and his brothers, and Judah, the father of Perez, and Zarah by Tamar, and Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron was the father of Ram, and Ram was the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nashan, and Nashan the father of Solomon, and Solomon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king, and David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Aesap, and Asap the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

And after the deportation to Babylon, Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Acham, and Acham the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eliazar, and Eliazar the father of Matan, and Beton the father of Jacob, and Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ, fourteen generations.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way, when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with a child from the Holy Spirit.

And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

And all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son.

And he called his name Jesus.

A lot of times there's a reason, y'all, like I get why you preachers skip over that chapter.

There's like 67 names in there, and none of them are names we use nowadays.

Well, uh, a lot of times God says things in such a way it's kind of hard to hear what he's saying.

But there's four things that God's saying that I want to remind you of tonight.

Number one, God's saying, I'm not done.

I'm not done.

Today was the day that was the question.

I went to the bank this morning and they had one teller and 17 of us in line.

We weren't bitter or anything, but I was given a running commentary on how to make this more efficient.

I started talking to the guy in front of me, and then we started making chit-chat small talk, and he says, Whether you done?

And I said, Done.

He said, Christmas shop.

And I was like, Man, I yeah, I got I gotta get my wife's present.

He said, You ain't got your wife's present yet?

I said, Well, I'm going over here to Walgreens.

He said, get a microwave bacon cooker, that's it, you know.

And the lady behind me hit me in the back and said, You're kidding, right?

And I said, No, I take that back.

I got her some truck wash and some McGuire's wax so she can detail my truck.

That wasn't funny.

Uh, because she was like, You better get some money out of the bank and buy your woman something.

I went, she's not been that good.

And so we're just kind of talking along there, and more and more people are hating me, and I think this is funny.

I've got them going.

And finally the lady goes, next, and the guy stepped up, and I'm just like, and the lady said, You're really not done?

That is the pressing question.

Why am I making a big deal out of that?

Because some of you aren't done.

No, why am I making a big deal out of that?

Because in Matthew 1, God just kind of says, I'm not done.

If you read it in the original language, it actually echoes the creek the language of creation from Genesis.

And in a subtle way, God is kind of saying, I'm not done creating.

Because here's what I know that I shouldn't know, but I know some of you in this room got it so jammed up, so sideways, put it in the ditch so hard that this past year that you just kind of walked away and kind of said, Well, that was good.

I gave it my best, and I'll just learn to make this look enjoyable.

And God comes along and says, I'm not done.

I'm not done.

Back in Genesis, it sounded like this.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Here's why our church does Advent and not a bunch of other frilly silly things.

Because during Advent we celebrate the fact that darkness was once again hanging over God's people.

And in the incarnation, the coming of Jesus, God said once again, like he said back in Genesis, let there be light.

And he wrapped that light in swallowing cloths and laid him in a manger and entrusted this message that would change the world to a bunch of shepherds.

Why?

Because when God creates, he doesn't do something big and get trumpets and go, he does something small and giggles at the consequence.

Your creator never loses the capacity to create, so whatever you've screwed up, messed up, dented up, scraped up, he's not done.

Second thing he says to us from Matthew 1 is, I got this.

You're like, where'd you pull that out of?

It's that list of names that unless you homeschool your kids, you don't recognize them.

You're like Amenadab and are you kidding me?

What in the world is that?

Because the Bible's really careful.

He starts off and says, This is the genealogy of Jesus.

This is how he got here.

This is what God was doing all through the Old Testament.

When you were just like, if you ever try to read through the Old Testament, you're just like Chewbacca.

I just want to quit.

I want to get to a familiar part.

But yet, here's what I mean when I say God's got this.

Don't miss this.

God breaks it up.

14 generations, three sections of 14 generations.

Now, if you're into numbers, you want to think about it, if you break that up, that's six sevens.

And Jesus is coming as the seventh seven, the perfection of perfection.

But I gotta be done, or that little kid's gonna get me, so that's just kind of free.

I'll just put that out there.

It's three sections of fourteen generations.

Why?

And and that's the history of the whole Old Testament.

I mean, there was murder and war and theft and all kinds of craziness and immorality and all kinds of this stuff going on.

And God was kind of like, hey, and and by the way, I was in charge the whole time.

Regardless of who gets in the White House, I'm still in charge.

Somebody tell the Roquettes.

We're gonna protest.

We won't feel it, but go ahead.

No, see, I I got this.

Whatever feels unmanageable and out of control.

And God's saying, I got it, he's not saying not it's like, well, I'm responsible for it.

No, we're responsible for it.

When you look around and you see the way the world is, don't look at God and check your fist and go, what are you doing?

He's smiling down and going, I'm waiting for you to run out of ideas.

I got this.

Third thing he says for Matthew 1 is who I came from is who I came for.

That's why I read to you on this night the genealogy of Jesus for Matthew 1.

That's why Matthew starts it where he starts it to say these are the kind of people he came from.

He lists off four women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, not to say, oh, something unique or different or second class about women.

Nobody, nobody betrayed and bestowed more dignity upon women than Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And so why is that a big deal?

Women were never listed in a genealogy.

And yet the Bible lists these four women, and not all of them were like vacation Bible school volunteers.

I say like that.

Tamar present, Tamar was a woman who pretended to be somebody to kind of trick a guy.

I'll say it like that, because there's little ears in here.

Rahab, she didn't pretend to be, she was who she was, and she got paid.

See how I said that in the language that your kids have no idea why you're laughing?

Yes.

And then there's this third one there.

Ruth was a woman whose husband died.

She was a widow.

And she told her daughter-in-law, hey, you just go do what you gotta do.

I'll be fat.

I'll just sit here and eat cookies and wait to die.

And they said, No, we're gonna go to the city over here.

And they went to the city, and God had a plan.

See, God's, she thought, if this is over, my life's over.

I lost my husband, and God said, Hello.

And God so worked in her life that a book in the Old Testament is named after her.

And then the fourth lady is a lady, my favorite name is Bathsheba.

Bathsheba had an affair with a very uh political, a very strong political figure.

Not only did she have an affair, it was an ongoing affair, she became knocked up, pregars, had a kid out of wedlock, and then her husband was killed to cover up the affair.

Why do I tell you that?

Because Jesus came from these kind of people, real life, jacked up, dysfunctional sinners, just like the people you're gonna eat lunch with tomorrow.

Just like the people who are back at your house right now eating your food and drinking your drink because they didn't want to come to church.

And you're sitting here thinking, I wonder if they're looking through our stuff.

Yes, yes, they are.

They're judging you.

They look like, oh my god, they got a new refrigerator.

Oh, these people, I'll tell you what, how do they afford that?

Do you see that SUV she's driving?

Must have made a deal with the devil.

And your sister-in-law's not leaving till Tuesday, so pace yourself.

Yes.

Why do I say this?

Because who I came from is who I came for.

Jesus did not come for people who have it all sorted.

So if you're here tonight and you're messed up, you're screwed up, and you're just hopeless, and you're just kind of thinking, man, there is no way.

Are you kidding me?

I read all those names of all those textured, flawed people to say to you, you're the type of people that he came for.

People like me, real sinners, who live through that curve of, hey, it's good.

I kind of went off and kind of when I was in my early 20s, ah, and it's like, you don't have to do that.

In the midst of that, you can have that aha moment where you come to your senses like the prodigal son and say, Hello.

What am I doing here?

The math doesn't add up.

My father's hired servants have more than enough food to spare, and I'm starving.

Ask yourself, if God is really as good as the Bible says he is, is that the best he can do for your life?

The answer is no.

You're smart people.

But here's the answer you don't want to face.

It's the best you can do for your life.

That's what ought to bring you back home.

That's what brings prodigals back home.

Fourth thing God says is don't miss this.

Don't miss this.

There's this rhythm to the genealogy that goes something like this.

This man fathered this man, then he fathered that man, this guy fathered that guy, and so forth, until it gets to Joseph, where it reads, and Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born.

Joseph's never referred to as the father.

Why?

Because he wasn't the father.

Now, as a pastor, I meet a lot of people, and when I begin to ask them, hey, do you go to church anywhere?

Do you have a church home?

I'd love for you to come visit our church, be a part of our church.

Do you have a pastor?

I'd love to be your pastor.

Especially if they're like an engineer type, which are my favorite, they're very smart, and some of you may be that way.

Glory to God, I'm all for being smart, okay?

And they but they say to me, Well, Pastor, I don't attend church.

And I said, Can I ask you why?

Well, I just don't believe some of the myths of the Bible.

Like what?

And nine times out of ten, they say, Well, the virgin birth.

And I'll say, you know what?

Before you had a problem believing it, so did Mary.

And they'd be like, it's almost like Scooby-Doo.

They're like, What?

You better watch that.

The trapdoor is gonna open up under you and you're gonna go to the bad place.

And I'm like, no, that's what the Bible says.

And they're like, shut up.

Now, boys and girls, that's not a word you can use.

Only Pastor Neil gets to use that twice a year.

On my in-laws.

But I digress.

No, don't.

When I say don't miss this, what do you mean?

Joseph was the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born.

When I say this, you should think, what is this?

Here's what this is.

This is a foreshadowing of the nature of grace.

Don't miss this.

This is a foreshadowing of the nature of grace.

What do you mean?

The initiative and the power are all God's.

Listen to what it says.

Luke's gospel, where Mary, who was like, before you tripped over the virgin birth, Mary was like, Come back with that again.

Say what?

The Bible says it like this.

And Mary said to the angel, How will this be since I'm a virgin?

And the angel answered her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

And therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

This is a foreshadowing of grace.

And by that I mean Jesus was born the same way you and I are born again.

Let me say that again.

This is because sometimes we preachers say things like this is a foreshadowing of grace, and you're like, loser reads too many books.

No, to put it down there where we all live, Jesus was born the same way you and I were born again.

John's gospel says it like this in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and yet the world did not know him.

The world said, I got it, we got it, we're doing good.

I got a little cushion in the bank.

Come on, man.

You're tripping over the one who created everything you enjoy.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God.

And again, Jesus was born the same way you and I were born again.

That's the foreshadowing of grace.

So what does that mean for us?

What that means for us, and I'll be done, is simply this.

You don't get it all together.

You don't take a bath in order to come to God and take a shower.

You come just like you are.

Why?

Because the Holy Spirit comes upon you and the power of the Most High overshadows you.

And so don't miss that because if you miss that, then you you you think about spiritual things, you think about God in terms of what you deserve instead of what he wants you to have.

And he so wanted us to have it that he didn't build a big, beautiful cathedral worth 75,000 gazillion dollars and have fountains out front.

That's what churches do.

And I don't disparage that.

That's great.

What he did was he appeared to these shepherds.

These are like the guys that are working security at the warehouse on Christmas Eve.

He appears to those cats and says, Hey, I want to include you in what I'm doing because I want everybody to know that I came for everybody.

And so they say he said, Go check this out.

They came and they said, Hey, now that we've seen it, let's go make known what we've seen.

And so we close our Christmas Eve service of what we call passing of the peace.

And so I've asked some families, if you'll come right now, I've asked some families to help me observe this ritual we call passing of the peace, because this is how it got done.

God is not, I'm gonna build this big thing and you come check it out.

God is uh, hey, the the the the Holy Spirit's gonna come up on you and the power of the Most High is gonna overshadow you.

That's why some of you work with people that can't help and you say, What'd you do this weekend?

They say something about God, church, Jesus, whatever.

It's not because they're religious kooks, it's just because, hey man, this is this is how it happened to me.

And so the Bible commemorates, and so I'll light one of my one of my little shepherds here.

Some of y'all come in the front.

I won't bite you.

And so, what's gonna happen is that each one of these families will go to a different section and they'll just light the candle of the person in the front row.

Just stay here for a second, don't leave yet.

The Bible gives us a picture at the end of Revelation.

It's around the throne of God.

And it says there was a multitude of all nations, all kindreds, all tribes, all tongues, all people that no man can number.

Jesus came for all people.

He does not discriminate based on your skin color, your socioeconomic background, whether you're good or bad, whether you've been good this year or not.

That's not the way God does it.

This is not on the basis of what you deserve, this is on the basis of what God wants you to have.

And so as we celebrate this, they're gonna come to you and then they light your candle, they'll take your candle and light it, and they'll say, hand it back to you and say, peace of Christ.

And what I want you to do is just turn around and light the candle of the people behind you.

And when you do, say peace of Christ and hand their candle back.

Let's pass the peace, beloved.

Just take a moment.

Just look around.

This room is kind of like this past year for many of us.

Good things, things that are inconvenient, things that are uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Merry Christmas to you, Dad.

Hey, look at me.

He's got this.

He's not done.

He's not done.

He's not giving up on you.

So you don't have permission to give up on yourself and just sit down where you are.

Okay?

But I don't want you to hold your hands out because you pour wax on your neighbor.

Just lift your candle if you would.

May the Holy Spirit come upon you.

And the power of the Most High overwhelm you, overshadow you.

You can hear yourself being called holy.

The sons and daughters of God.

This is the purpose of the incarnation.

And it's the reason we celebrate what we celebrate at Christmas.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Merry Christmas.

And good night.

God bless you.